Today was a day spent adventuring through a few different things in Rockhampton – I think we got quite a bit covered in one day!
First stop was up to Mount Archer – known as Nurim by the Darumbal people. It’s only a really short drive from the centre of Rockhampton, 15 minutes up a windy road to the top of Mount Archer. We headed off for a wander on the Nurim Circuit Elevated Boardwalk, a beautiful winding boardwalk that stretches out over the side of Mount Archer to give you an incredible view of Rockhampton and surrounds. Toward the end of the walk was a fun playground in the middle of the bush that the kids loved having a run around on as well.
From there, we headed about 15 minutes north of Rockhampton to Capricorn Caves. Apparently the Caves (known as Olsen Caves originally) are thought of as Queensland’s first tourist attraction, after the owners of the land started charging visitors for a tour through the caves they’d found on their land in the late 1800s. We joined with 5 other people for our Explorer tour of the cave, and our guide James got us fitted out with a helmet and light – we were in for some proper cave exploring!
Our tour took us up into the mountain that sits just above the Capricorn Caves reception area, and before long we were into our first cave – just a small one, but such a tiny entrance that took some clambering to get into. We learnt that these are limestone caves, and were essentially formed from an underwater coral reef that sat here some hundreds of millions of years ago. We headed back out from the first little cave and walked around the mountain a little more.
We then arrived at a much bigger cave opening, and this is where a lot of the adventure started. It was a huge cave opening, but there were plenty of small spaces to crawl and clamber through to come! We got to climb through a whole series of different areas as we made our way essentially through the mountain we’d been starting to walk up. We first arrived at a cave called the Flower Pot – named because that’s what it looks like, as a collapsed cave with the sun shines through from above and a tree is growing in the centre of it. I think this was a central area in the cave – and essentially in the centre of the mountain (which feels bizarre to write). From there, we crawled through a very small and narrow section of cave to exit the tunnel onto the other side of the mountain to a lookout – but it was a lookout that you can only access by crawling through a long and winding cave! The view at the lookout on the otherwise was quite incredible.
We then came back in through the same cave and had a chance to enjoy a couple of extra optional caves to crawl through – one of these was a very small and tight tunnel that ran around one of the main chambers. We all had a go at it, and the kids even had two goes at it because they were so much quicker at crawling through it while the adults had to clamber through a bit slower!
We all had an awesome time exploring the caves. This was essentially the “beginner” or entry level caves tour. You get to do a bit of crawling and exploring, but it’s all fairly simple and most people can do it. From there, they offer a tour called the Adventurer where you can do a lot more crawling through tiny spaces – I think a few of us would now like to do something like that after today, Daniel especially!
This afternoon we grabbed some rolls and sausages from the shops just up the road and headed down to Kershaw Gardens, an enormous garden area on the north side of Rockhampton. It’s so big, with so many places to explore that you feel so disconnected from the city – but it literally alongside the Bruce Highway. The kids had a great time playing in the huge playground there, and we then enjoyed a wander around the gardens past the waterfall, and exploring the rainforest walk as well. It was a nice relaxing afternoon, and a lovely way to finish the day.
Tomorrow, we farewell Central Queensland and make the journey down to the familiar area of Hervey Bay, via Bundaberg.
